Just The Tip is a small FFA map, comprised of the top portion of the Spire. It has been optimized for zero bloom (with magnums placed as power weapons) and classic physics, although it works fine with default too. Feedback regarding weapon placement in particular would be appreciated. It's difficult to place weapons in prominent locations and at the same time keep them a reasonable distance from each other on such a small map. Edit: Minor updates to barricade positions and power weapon spawns now in place Until fileshares are available via web again, go to File Browser, New Custom Search, Filtered Search, select Tag, type "WhackyGordon" and then click Search to find my files.
Uh, If you're really serious about this, you should of put this in casual. I don't think this could be competitive. The fighting is at the tip of the spire? All I see added is some weps, a teleporter, and mancannons.
Any idea where I can find a description of what the various forums (competitive/casual/etc) are for? And yeah, fighting at the tip of Spire - lots of good gameplay happens up there during Invasion - this just focuses everything there. I didn't exactly need to spend days forging this - there aren't a whole lot of options for forge objects, so barricades, man cannons and teleporters are the extent of the "design" that went into this. The only other decent objects available are stunt ramps, and I chose to avoid those for aesthetics and frame rate. That said, I think this could be a decent competitive 2v2 map. It's similar in a lot of ways to Zealot, albeit smaller. Weapons might need tweaking, but I think they're okay as they are now.
And I thought my map name was unin-spire-ing. **hushes crowds laughter** I didn't even think of closing off Just the Tip of Spire. That's gotta make for some intense close combat. I myself closed off the everything within the ring of the spire to shrink down the map but this is some seriously focused map choppage. I'll have to download and give it a try. ----------- LOL I just remembered I changed my map name from Spire to Argon Flux so I'm out of the lame name game and strait into Alzheimer's.
lol I put the sword in the same place on my map, before I decided to pull it I've been getting really sick of forge world, so I've been looking for decent non-forge-world maps. I downloaded your map - I'll check it out later on when I get home. And yeah, it's (Just The Tip that is) definitely a faster paced map. It works well with zero bloom because of that.
This is a neat concept, but it would be cool if you could add more pics and a description of what you changed. Because, like shikarix said, you can only see that some weapons and man cannons were added from the pics you've got there.
Well, I'll edit a couple more screenshots into the OP, but not that much has been added. The most significant editing is the removal of the rest of the map (well, making it unaccessible) I added three man cannons, one grav lift, a teleporter sender node with two receivers, a whack of barricades, weapons, and the necessary spawning related objects. That's it. Nothing fancy. Just taking a chunk of a map that already exists and setting it up to be independently playable.
I think alot of people just have real trouble wrapping their head around why you would want to hack 90% of a map away and optimize such a small space. I on the other hand, do understand it. I think what you've made here looks like it will be some really good fun once I can get a game with the boys on it. In the mean time here's a couple things I noticed. One of your barricades seems to be set up reasonably well but the others seem to be a bit on the snug side. You may want to push them forward a bit so you can open the space on the sides of the barricades for easier access. I'm not sure you need quite so many ammo refills on this map, maybe cut a couple. I'm also not so sure the teleporter is really necessary and/or adds benefit to the map. You may want to try putting a power weapon there instead. Or, how about a small cannon man back through the window. I'd probably go with one or the other not both. I'm having trouble finding the purpose of the kill zones around the top. I'm not sure it would be a good camping spot as you can get grenaded pretty easily so it seems like something that may not be necessary. There's a few spawn points that I find questionable but I'll have to wait until I get a match on here before I can decide. All and all this looks good. The pace looks like it will be perfect for me.
Which way should I shift the barricades? I didn't want them too close to the edge, so players won't fall off accidentally while taking cover, but I didn't want to put them all against the inside edge because I felt that location was too advantageous against anyone running around the circumference of the map. They're reduced ammo with fast respawns - figured easy weapon collection would lend itself to faster gameplay. I could go either way on the teleporter - I just included it to make the top a little harder to control. It's one of those "HLG" spots on the full version of Spire. I KZ'd it just to be safe. Let me know if there are any seriously problematic ones. That's one area I need to hone as far as my forging skill-set goes. Thanks! Feedback much appreciated - let me know what you think I should do with the barriers and I'll play with them a little bit - see if I can make things feel a bit more natural.
Keep them in the middle of the (let's say) catwalk, just push them out a couple feet so that it's not tight to the door ramp. That way you can 'walk' down the ramp and comfortably go around both sides of the barricades. Sorry I haven't had an actual game on it so I didn't check the ammo or respawn rate. If that's the case it may be fine, although if it's just the typical assault riffle I may still say to remove a couple. I mean, death should come quick and that will leave plenty on deck. Since you're already a hop skip and a jump away from a canon man virtually anywhere on the map I'd say that the teleporter isn't much of a sell. If you put a key weapon over there it would keep map flow and may offer some interesting fights. Alternatively if you put a small jump pad that sends you through the window it may offer some amusing flying sneak attacks I usually don't pay much mind to HLG or any real Hardcore tactics so I wouldn't have noticed that. In all honesty I probably would have put a small circular kill zone up just to slightly sink the built in soft kill zone just to make sure nobody got up to high. Same sort of effect I guess. I probably won't get a game in until Sunday. If there's anything big I notice, I'll try to let you know. PS. Hope you like Argon Flux
Ahh - I see what you're saying now. I'll definitely tweak that. Hopefully I can get on for a bit tonight to make adjustments. Well, I don't know how well it works exactly, but I set it up so the lower levels have DMRs with 1 clip and 15 sec respawn, while the ones at the top have 2 (maybe 3, not sure atm) clips with a 60 sec respawn. Trying to keep the players up top moving around, and making it easier to assault from below. I like the idea of moving a power weapon there, but I'm having difficulty cutting down the number of access points to the top level. Particularly because the 3 man cannons and the grav lift all make noise when used, giving away the player's position. I set up the teleporter with two exit points so it would be harder to predict and defend against. I don't know if I should pull it or not... Here's a video of the HLG spot. I didn't really think it was an issue, but you kinda get stuck in those spots so they don't really flow with the map very well. Plus they'd be free shanks on anybody hitting a man cannon if whoever was holding the top had decent prediction. Thanks - it's much appreciated It looks pretty sweet. My only issue is the boundaries of the map - is it just a soft kill at the orange grav lifts? Do you have the budget to maybe make a little wall of stunt ramps or something? It wouldn't look too bad if you phased them into the ground with the edge pointing up or something.. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I will, but any suggestions for objective spawn/capture placement? I was having a tough time picking where the power weapons went, let alone figuring out where to spawn a flag. It's set up for headhunter so far. Would stockpile be a good direction to go? Maybe have the capture zone in the middle or something?
You may be able to hear someone taking a man canon but you really don't know where they're coming from. (provided you're not 1v1) It's equal opportunity. As for the HLG aspect, since you're recommending 2-4 players, I don't think it will matter much. You would probably need to get up to almost 8 players in a team match before it would make a real impact. They will be partially trapped inside those alcoves where as you can dodge freely. A couple well aimed grenade throws could make for easy kills. Argon Flux - There are random hard kills outside the zone, hence the "Flux". It just so happens that it tends to spike near the outer man canons rendering them useless So no sneak jumps. Ramps would be a little to stunt course like and so I wouldn't be interested in adding them. I don't think I could if I wanted to though since there are hardly any forge pieces available. If you have any questions about this map please let me know, but you may want to post on that thread so we keep this mostly about you I look forward to your edits.
Well, I just watched my little brother play an FFA on it (he has more friends that play customs) and the teleporter was getting more use than the man cannons. Not sure what to make of it, but given the amount of gameplay that happened up top, I think I want to keep it. I don't think it matters much - I haven't seen anybody actually go back there, and it would restrict your movement so much, it doesn't really make sense to keep it as a part of the playable area. Roger wilco I think I'll probably move the barricades away from the doors and maybe pull a grenade launcher tonight, reupload it, and do some more playtesting. Good news though - nobody has jumped off the map yet, as far as I've seen
No suicide jumpers? That's disappointing. Also you could do what I do, annoy your friends by making three versions with a minor change to each and make everyone play each version and decide what they prefer It's also good to watch what they do and decide if what they like best is best for the map. Sometimes easier isn't better.
Trust me, unless you placed them all in the same spot, there shouldn't any framerate. Besides, you could acyuallt be creative and add new areas using them!
Well, given that stunt ramps are the only option, I think they would just be too ugly if I used them exclusively to build an additional area. It would be a big floating black chunk tacked on, and I think it would detract too much from the symmetry.
I like the idea of switching up the gameplay from a BTB map to something else...you should run with it!
Updated OP - adjusted barricades and power weapon spawns [br][/br]Edited by merge: I already have another - Stockyard - but it hasn't gotten much attention at least partly due to it's uninspiring name. Breakpoint has a lot more potential then Spire, thanks to the significantly more diverse forge palette.